Hellebore, Aloe, and Thistle
by Lirillith
Summary: Dark Precure survives her own defeat, and Dune's, and learns to live in the world she was raised to destroy.


She's no longer Dark Precure. Her defeat transformed her, as her own attacks had done to the Heart Tree's Cures before; she's now merely a human, wingless and powerless, in a simple, dark gown. If she had any energy, any power left, she could transform back, but she has none, and no reason even to make the attempt. Her reason is lying dead before her, and her sister, her other self, is kneeling on his other side. "Yuri," he's saying, "forgive me... and forgive your sister. She had no choice." He's still talking to the real Moonlight, the original, the first daughter, even though he's given his life force to keep her alive after her defeat. He's talking about how she was made, and why. He tells Moonlight that she's her younger sister. "She has a heart now," he's saying. "Despite the way I made her, she has a heart. Take care of her." He's talking about her, but he's talking to her sister, and all she wants is for him to look at her, one last time.

And finally he does. But no, that wasn't all she wanted after all. She wants him to live, to be her father, to hold her, but all she can have is the fact that he's looking at her, and saying his last words for her.

"Dark," he says. "My daughter... Live. The Precure will protect you. The world... isn't so bad. Live and be happy."

_Be happy._ The only reason she's not weeping like Moonlight is that she never learned how. "Father!" she shouts, as if she can call him back.

* * *

She watches the final battle with the old woman, Cure Flower, feeling empty as she never has before. In an odd way, she benefits no matter who wins. If Dune is the victor, the cause that she and her father worked for all this time is successful. If the Precure are victorious, she can try to honor his final wishes. If only she could feel any pleasure at either thought.

* * *

The place they take her after the battle is warm, humid, teeming with life; it probably never occurs to them that she might find it inhospitable. They try to ask her what she wants, it's true, but what she wants is her father's return, and they can't grant that. So instead, they talk amongst themselves. Cure Marine enthusiastically offers to provide clothes, while Cure Moonlight, much more subdued, says something about her mother, and Cure Blossom waits until the others have gone to say to her, quietly, "We'll need a name for you."

"No," she says, because she only wants the name her father gave her. She's the dark side of the moon. Once she could finally supplant Cure Moonlight, she might claim that name, but only then.

In the glass garden, she walks among the plants. She's looking for cactus, for scrub, what little grows in the desert, or for nettles and thorns. But before she finds either, she finds the black flower.

The petals look black to her, at least; they're certainly dark, the pale eye at its center standing out in sharp contrast. The blooms nod and droop — it's surprising, really, that it caught her eye at all. It's surprising they let a flower like this exist among all the glossy green leaves, blossoming with bright pinks and yellows and rich reds and purples. She kneels to look at them more closely, afraid to touch them and damage them.

So that's where the old woman who used to be Cure Flower finds her, on her knees by the one out-of-place cluster of dark blooms in this garden. She hears the steps approaching, but she doesn't bother to look up. None of them could hurt her at a time like this. "That's a Christmas Rose," Cure Flower says. Christmas — the holiday they're celebrating now. It doesn't really look like a rose. "Helleborus," she continues. "Or hellebore."

"Hellebore," she repeats. The word feels strange in her mouth, but she's pleased to have a name to put to the flower.

"It grows best in the shade," Cure Flower says. "Shadows. And some varieties bloom in winter, though inside a greenhouse that's not so unusual." Cure Flower smiles, the wrinkles of her face rearranging themselves. "Do you like it?"

She certainly has a lot in common with it, at least. Cure Moonlight's magic had worked on her to some extent, and she must be softening now, the way Sasorina did. It would be best, really, even though she rebels at the thought; Sabaaku had asked her to live on, to make peace with the Precure, and with their world of blooming hearts and messy life. "I... do."

* * *

The year turns over; Marine wants to put her in a kimono, she's told, some sort of tradition at the New Year, but she refuses, and stays away from their festivities.

She's not Dark Precure anymore, but she isn't anyone else yet. Flower and Blossom — Kaoruko and Tsubomi, they insist — sometimes call her Christmas Rose, when they need a name. The two of them seem to have decided it's their job to teach her how to be alive, and so they explain things to her, give her books, answer her questions. They're happy she knows how to read, but also, she can tell, surprised. She helps Kaoruko to care for the garden, watering plants, snipping off dead blooms, sweeping up leaves and dirt, but in her free time, she favors the desert section of the botanical garden. The soil there is sand and rocks, and while the plants are still everywhere, densely packed, there's more space between them. She can relate to these plants, to cacti and succulents, with their spikes and spines and strange habits developed to let them survive the desert. Aloe, prickly pear, hedgehog, pincushion. They still send up flowers, bright reds and oranges and aggressive pinks, but the blossoms aren't just waiting there, helpless, to be picked.

Cactus means desire, she's told, or endurance. She likes the second better, but she can't see what the difference is, which of the flowers means which. Aloe means grief. Tsubomi can't explain why, or what purpose any of it serves, why you'd choose to say things with flowers rather than words, but the meaning still makes her look more kindly on the spiky, unwelcoming flowers than on their friendlier counterparts that mean things like love and friendship. Flowers don't all have to be happy and peaceful. There's more to this world than that.

Kaoruko, or Grandma, as Blossom calls her, explains some complicated situation involving Blossom's parents, a new infant on the way, and Blossom's mother's parents, and that's why Kaoruko sometimes stays with Blossom, when Blossom's father is away, or needs help. Other times, she has an apartment of her own, where they spread out a second futon on the floor, and the girl who used to be Dark Precure puts herself to sleep each night thinking about the chains of parents and children that make up families, about names and childhood and other things she doesn't have.

"How long do babies take?" she asks Tsubomi one day, as they drink tea in the botanical garden. She doesn't care for the dusty taste of chamomile, but she doesn't know what she'd prefer.

"How long... a mother is pregnant for nine months," Tsubomi says. "Is that what you meant?"

"Somewhat."

Tsubomi doesn't exactly smile with her mouth, but her eyes seem to. Facial expressions are complicated. "I'm fourteen years old," Tsubomi says gently. "Yuri-san is seventeen. I think you look the same age as she is, at least about the same age... though I guess you're the younger sister."

"Ah." She takes another sip of her tea. Best not to underestimate Tsubomi, she decides, even if Blossom was always a weakling.

They're silent for a moment. She takes another sip of the tea, and Tsubomi says, "You don't really seem to like it. Would you like something else?"

Sometimes she welcomes all this kindness, this gentle understanding, and sometimes it makes her want to break things, to punch and kick and tear plants from the earth. She never does, though. "Sorry," she manages, gruffly, pushing her chair back with a scrape. Sorry for not liking the things they give her, for being a bother, for the anger she's not even showing. Maybe someday she'll be sorry for all that she did to fight them. "I need..." _To be out of here._ "I need to go," she says. "Some air."

_Needing some air_ makes her think of flight, but when she transformed into merely human, the reverse of the Heart Tree's Cures, she lost that. Her wing is gone, and she doesn't know how she could regain it. She's just a human girl now, in a black sweater and a pair of denim pants Cure Marine brought to her, and all she can do is walk fast, weaving between the people on the path, until finally she breaks into a run.

It's not until she's reached a hillside, away from everyone, that she realizes she didn't start running until she found a clear area, and wouldn't collide with anyone. She didn't even think about it, even though she used to attack them equally without thinking. Was this the real result of the Precure's cleansing magic? Or just the result of months spent among humans?

At least, she thinks, it's not quite spring yet. The trees have no leaves, the grass is mostly dry and brown, and with a few exceptions, most of the life is just potential coiled beneath the surface, waiting for spring, not rioting everywhere as it does in summer. She'll have to face that someday, but not yet. The wind is cold, and the air is dry; although her run heated her up, her hands grow cold enough that she pulls them inside the sleeves of her sweater.

Eventually, though, she has no choice but to go back — slower, this time, no running — and when she does, she finds Tsubomi pouring tea. "It's ginger," Tsubomi says. "It's at least really different from chamomile!"

"Ah... thank you," she says, her voice still feeling stiff and uncertain with phrases like this. But Tsubomi beams at her, so she must have done well enough. The tea is hot, steaming, and spicy as well; much more to her taste. She tries to smile, but isn't sure it works, and then she tries the only other thing she can think of. "Tsubomi," she says, and the girl's eyes widen. She must never have used the name before. "Do I... have a heart flower?"

"Yes! I mean, I can check, but I just know you do. I can feel it. I'll go get the Heartcatch Mirage!"

* * *

"Awww! So you don't know what it is yet?" The short one is just as talkative, and loud, in civilian interactions as she'd always been in battle.

"No." Her bluntness earns her a sharp look from Tsubomi. People like to say unnecessary things just to be polite, they tell her, but nothing phases Marine anyway.

"Well that bites."

"It's just a sprout," Tsubomi supplies hastily. "It's too soon to know what it will be yet. But it's definitely starting to grow!"

"How fast? When will you know what it is?"

"You can't rush a _heart._" She sounds almost shocked. "We aren't going to check any time soon. Just knowing that it's starting to sprout is enough!"

"It's a cactus," Dark says, on impulse.

"It is?" Marine believes her?

"We don't know yet!"

"A thistle," she suggests, despite Tsubomi's frustration. "A nettle."

"So that was a _joke!_" Marine's grinning broadly. "You're not so bad after all, Hellebore."

"Erika, that's not her name! It's not a name at all."

"Yeah, well, what's the harm? Yuri's named after a flower. You're named after a flower, kinda. What about the baby, do you know what they're gonna call it yet?"

The baby, still not yet born, absorbs the two young girls the rest of the way to their homes. The general understanding among the Precure seems to be that Moonlight will — or perhaps already has — informed her mother of the full story, of Sabaaku's identity, his fate, and Dark's existence. Eventually, Dark will go to live with them as a younger daughter. And mothers name their daughters.

None of the Precure except, possibly, Moonlight, seem to have accounted for the possibility that Moonlight's mother will want nothing to do with this stranger who comes to her in place of her husband. She already has a daughter; what need does she have for the failed substitute daughter her husband created without so much as telling her? No, Moonlight's mother is unlikely to welcome her daughter's dark side, no more likely than Moonlight herself is.

That's only natural, and she could always wait for her Heart Flower to show itself and take that as her name. Moonlight — Yuri — has a lily in her heart, after all, as her dark sister is only too well aware. But she's beginning to feel she's waited long enough. So when the two young girls shepherd her inside the store they call Fairy Drop, and a tall woman who looks much like an older, more angular version of Marine asks them about their new friend, she ignores their flustered mumbling to introduce herself as Tsukikage Azami. If Marine's mother notices anything amiss about their expressions of shock, or the way they take their guest by the arms and hustle her to the back of the store, Azami has no chance to see it.

Safely ensconced among the racks of clothing, Marine recovers swiftly. "Azami, huh?" She's flipping through the selection with the speed of familiarity, selecting dark colors, blacks and deep reds and purples, and some surprising bright pink. "Thistle. Doesn't seem like that's too friendly in flower language."

"Neither am I," she says. Azami. The Tsukikage might have been presumptuous, but she's still Sabaaku's daughter, and that's how names are given, parent to child.

Marine snickers. "Ain't that the truth."

"Erika!"

"She said it!"

"It's true," Azami says. "I'm not friendly. And I like flowers that fight back."

"Well... that's..."

"Isn't that what we all wanted?" Marine asks. "For her to find out what she likes and who she is and all that stuff? Now she is! It doesn't have to be the same things you or I like! Though figuring out your personal style is important for anyone," she adds, shoving clothes into Azami's arms. "Go try these on!"

"Thank you, Erika," she says. More for the support than for the clothing, though she supposes it will be too warm for her sweater one day soon.

She leaves the shop laden down with bags full of clothes — tights and stockings and skirts and shorts and shirts, things they call accessories that serve no purpose at all, and fashion magazines because Erika still isn't satisfied. "It'll take time," she says. "A big part of being a younger sister is figuring out how you want to piss off your older sister."

"Erika! I hope that's not true." Because Tsubomi will soon be an older sister.

"Oh, it's true. Take it from me."

She has bags and bags of clothing, though she doesn't yet have the older sister, but mostly, what she has now is a name.

* * *

"So... Azami-san?" Cure Sunshine's hair has grown, and on past encounters Azami has noticed she's now dressing in more feminine clothing — though not always in skirts — but in the dojo, she's wearing the same unisex outfit as everyone else. "You'll be in the beginners' class. Is that all right?"

"Of course." It's as acceptable as anything else here. Kaoruko had noticed her restlessness, her irritability, and suggested this as a remedy. Watching the activities in the dojo, she's not sure how it can help. These people, mostly men, are punching the air, engaging in harmless practice spars. How can that vent her frustration?

Quite effectively, it turns out. The punches and kicks don't need to connect; her arms and legs and lungs are still working, as they haven't in months, and she feels fully alive for the first time since she transformed down into a human body. "How did you know?" she asks Kaoruko, that night, over lavender tea. She's sore and weary and it feels amazing.

"I used to practice karate myself when I was young," Kaoruko says. "It was an oversight, not suggesting something like this earlier. Tsubomi's a bit of a bookworm, but you're the type that needs to be active."

She doesn't think anything of the comparison until at least an hour later. Why compare her to Tsubomi? "Thank you, Grandma," she says, into the quiet room, and Kaoruko smiles at her and says nothing more.

Practice at the Myoudouin dojo in the evenings becomes part of her routine. Sunshine herself is usually occupied with her own training, rather than with the new students, but she checks in on Azami from time to time. "Are you enjoying it here?" she asks, one day, after practice is over.

When she first came here, defeated and stunned, Azami would have found the idea absurd. How could she enjoy anything with her father dead, her side defeated, trapped in a world full of everything she'd fought against all her life? But the sky outside is a pleasing mix of colors, purple and orange and gold, as it becomes night. She likes nighttime, and cold weather, and she also likes bright colors and spicy foods, desert plants and martial arts. Sometimes she likes beautiful things, depending on how they're beautiful.

Though Itsuki probably just meant the dojo. "Yes," she says, finally.

* * *

"Coupe-sama!" The voices are high-pitched, childish, and unmistakeable. She hadn't given a thought to the absence of the fairies, despite all the time she's spent with the young Cures, but now she wonders where they've been. She emerges from the dry corner she's found, full of cactus and succulents, in time to see them cuddled up to the big, silent mass she thinks of as a statue most of the time.

"They've been keeping watch over the Tree of Hearts all this time," says the most familiar voice in the world.

It's essentially reflex. Her heart speeds up, her body floods with adrenaline, and it's all she can do to keep her hands from clenching into fists. Maybe Moonlight feels the same. Maybe that's why she's stayed away. But she certainly doesn't show any sign of the tension and unreasoning fury that Azami's trying to fight down. "I'm surprised to find you here," she says, infuriatingly calm. "I wouldn't think it would feel very welcoming to you."

"The whole world is filled with life. I needed to adjust to it somehow." It's true, at least, though she doesn't know if that was the original intent behind bringing her here. "I'm surprised you came. But I suppose you didn't know I'd be here."

"No. I knew." She adjusts her eyeglasses. "I've been putting off this visit for weeks, but it's long overdue. Mother wants to meet you."

"Your mother...?"

"Our mother."

Azami is silent, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yuri gestures at the table and chairs, and Azami moves, slowly, to join her. "I'll make tea," Yuri says, when Azami hesitates over a chair, and leaves the room.

She has no reason to hate Yuri any longer. Their father acknowledged them both, and asked them to coexist, to forgive. She _doesn't_ hate Yuri, but her body thinks otherwise. She makes herself breathe deeply, pay attention to the scent of the flowers, the sound of the water, and she waits.

She hears Yuri's returning footsteps, slow and deliberate, and calms herself again. "It's difficult, isn't it?" Yuri asks. "We spent so long trying to kill each other."

"You feel that way too? It doesn't show."

"I did have time to prepare myself that you didn't have." She sets the tray on the table, arranges teacups and teapot. "Quite a bit of time. Mother's been asking me to visit you for over a month."

"I don't understand." She doesn't know where to start with what she doesn't understand. Why would Yuri's mother want Yuri to visit her, and why, if she wanted this at all, had she only wanted it for a month or so? "How could you even explain my existence?"

Yuri pours tea, a clear stream of greenish amber that smells of mint, and she begins to explain; to talk about their father before he became Sabaaku, his disappearance, the way she and her mother both kept up the pretense they believed he'd return one day. She'd known nothing about magic, or about her daughter becoming a Precure. Yuri had needed to explain everything, from the ground up, and give her mother time to adjust and to grieve. "It took a while," Yuri says, still in the same even, measured tones she's used throughout. Is this how she and her mother grieved? But Yuri had been shouting after their father just like Azami had, when he died, and Azami has passed these months quietly and peacefully, to all appearances, no matter how she felt inside. "But she wants to meet you now. If part of me was used to make you, you're her daughter as well."

"I see." At first phrases and noises like that had infuriated her — humans wasting so much time on words with no meaning — but now she understands them better.

"You're lucky he didn't give you my eyesight," Yuri adds, and takes off her glasses to wipe them. Azami doesn't know what to say to that at first — she's learned from Tsubomi about glasses, and contact lenses, and the way the Precure transformation improves eyesight along with other physical abilities — but then she sees Yuri's half-smile, and smiles in return.


End file.
